British Comedy Guide

Fawlty Towers or Yes Minister? Page 5

I'd have to go with Yes Minister over Fawlty Towers but they are both in my top 30. My criteria of favourites includes a weighting for how many hours enjoyment, so Fawlty Towers is not so high. I've read the scripts to Yes Minister & Yes, Prime Minister and enjoyed them a lot - even made notes for use in my job in the public service.

In Australia (Perth) everyone seems to have heard of Fawlty Towers but apart some other people from the UK, very few know of OFAH.

Getting UK DVDs is good (usually cheapish) but for some we are a bit behind. Today I got the final series of 'Allo 'Allo! (9) & Are You Being Served? (10) - both only just released.

Edited by Aaron.

No, I think you'll find that you're often doing better than us on the DVD front. The Yanks definitely are. For example, we only just got series 8 & 9 of 'Allo 'Allo! in December, and were only graced with the presence of Are You Being Served? S7 in June last year. Still no sign of S8. Really, really annoying.

Completely different styles. Yes Minister and YPM were written in a totally different style and had totally different drives to Fawlty. Why not have a joint number one or two if it's something that is keeping you up nights?

I haven't seen much of Yes Minister but I can confidently say that Fawlty Towers is clearly better. One of the reasons is that The Thick Of It was bascaily a revamp of Yes Minister and it worked brilliantly - and I feel that if Yes Minister was such a classic then there is no way any one would take to it being imitated even thirty years on. There is no way in the world a sitcom about a rowdy hotel manager would work today no matter who acted in it or how good the scripts were as Fawlty Towers IS a timeless classic.

Edited by Aaron.

Quote: Ronnie Anderson @ March 8 2009, 12:54 PM GMT

One of the reasons is that The Thick Of It was bascaily a revamp of Yes Minister and it worked brilliantly - and I feel that if Yes Minister was such a classic then there is no way any one would take to it being imitated even thirty years on.

Errr

Quote: Ronnie Anderson @ March 8 2009, 12:54 PM GMT

I haven't seen much of Yes Minister but I can confidently say that Fawlty Towers is clearly better. One of the reasons is that The Thick Of It was bascaily a revamp of Yes Minister and it worked brilliantly - and I feel that if Yes Minister was such a classic then there is no way any one would take to it being imitated even thirty years on. There is no way in the world a sitcom about a rowdy hotel manager would work today no matter who acted in it or how good the scripts were as Fawlty Towers IS a timeless classic.

Edited by Aaron.

In no sense was The Thick Of It a revamp of Yes Minister.

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